Inside Magazine

Longtime UW-Green Bay faculty member Denise Scheberle recently earned a nationwide teaching award from the American Political Science Association. It’s a remarkable honor — perhaps even more so because Scheberle didn’t set out to become a teacher at all.

“I had had another career, and was teaching just one class at a community college,” she said. “And I had a student come up to me and she handed me a letter. Then she said to me, ‘you know, you’ve given me faith in myself. And you ought to make your avocation your vocation, and become a teacher.’ And the more I thought about that, you know, the more I realized that she was right — that for me teaching would be my life’s work.”

That life’s work has included more than two decades at UW-Green Bay, in Public and Environmental Affairs. It’s brought with it the 2012 National Teacher of the Year accolade — the inaugural honor — from the American Political Science Association. It’s featured two UW-Green Bay Founders Association awards and a UW System teacher of the year honor. But perhaps above all, Scheberle says, it’s introduced her to some incredible people.

“I think, over the course of 20 years, I mean, we’ve always had wonderful faculty — I’d put our faculty up against any on any campus,” Scheberle said. “It’s been just a treasure for me to get to know my colleagues — and also our students, and I think they’re amazing. We have a new building; we have some renovation, but the people have stayed just really sort of down-to-earth — thoughtful, caring faculty and staff and students. So it’s a nice place to be.”

Scheberle stepped back from full-time classroom teaching in 2011, and now teaches a limited number of online courses for UW-Green Bay. It’s a teaching method she never anticipated 20 years ago, but Scheberle says she still finds ways to connect — even without the face-to-face interaction. The format may be different, but her passion has remained the same.

“As we look back on the last two decades, in many senses we have made progress — you know, our water’s cleaner, our air is cleaner, we’re doing better with managing hazardous waste,” she said. “But we still have a long ways to go — we have to keep pushing at it. I hope that people get involved and stay in tuned and do what they can to protect the environment.”

Click here for a news release detailing Prof. Scheberle’s 2012 national teaching award from the American Political Science Association.

Click here for a feature story in which Prof. Scheberle discusses her teaching philosophy and outlook after receiving the 2004 statewide Teaching Excellence Award from the UW System Board of Regents.

(This text closely approximates the embedded video’s audio content, including narration and interviews, and may include additional detail.)